


Death Is Only The Beginning

by Written_On_The_Trees



Series: The Trees' October 2020 Writing Challenge [29]
Category: Motionless in White (Band)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Death, F/M, First Meetings, Magical Realism, October Prompt Challenge, Prompt Fic, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Written_On_The_Trees/pseuds/Written_On_The_Trees
Summary: Day 28 of my 31 October Writing Prompts. Prompt:Soulmates.Everyone has a soulmate mark: a symbol somewhere on their body that would let them know when they meet their soulmate. Most people like their soulmarks, get a sense of joy when they see them...but Stephanie gets no sense of joy. No, the only think she feels when she looks at her soulmark is dread.
Relationships: Chris "Motionless" Cerulli/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Trees' October 2020 Writing Challenge [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949572
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Death Is Only The Beginning

Soulmarks were a touchy subject for Stephanie.

Most people loved the marks that would let them know when they had met their soulmate. It was the first thing a person had in common with their soulmate: and it was the first indicator a soulmate pair had found each other. Usually, at least before someone met their soulmate, it was something silvery and meaningful and beautiful _(even if it was only beautiful and meaningful to them and their soulmate),_ but Stephanie wasn’t that lucky. Her soulmark was nothing like that.

Her soulmate wasn’t silvery: it was an uneven, ashy grey colour.

It wasn’t meaningful to her: not one she’d thought of in twenty-five years.

The mark certainly wasn’t beautiful.

Ugly? One-hundred percent. Macabre? Absolutely. Horrifying? Stephanie had used to be terrified of it, when she was a child.

But then what child wouldn’t be terrified of having a gray scythe just under the crease of her elbow? Some of the other girls in her class at school had had sun on her wrist, another had had a dog just behind her right ear, and one of the boys had had a thorny rose on the back of his hand. When she had gotten to college, she’d laughed with one of her friends over the coffee bean on her hip, and admired another girl’s anklet of geometric circles, all while keeping her soulmark covered with a plaster designed to do just that.

That plaster only came off when she got in the shower after her day, and even then she hated looking at it. She tried to look at it as little as possible - but pale man with black hair leaning over her in the bath was staring at it with an almost reverent expression.

Stephanie was seriously weirded out by it.

She had no idea how he’d gotten into her bathroom - or who he was.

“What happened?”

“You fell and hit your head on the taps.” the man explained, his dark hair falling in front of his pale face, obscuring impossibly dark eyes: “I’m here to help”

Ice-cold hands touched hers, but she barely noticed because of the odd way he said had said he was here to help, especially when they quickly warmed up when they wrapped around hers: “How did you get in here?”

“I can get in anywhere.”

“But I locked my front door and this apartment is on the fifth floor…”

“Like I said…” the strange man replied: “I can get in anywhere.”

Sensing that she wasn’t going to get anywhere, and starting to feel more and more panicky about this strange man in her apartment, Stephanie pulled away from him and gripped the towel she was wearing tighter to her chest: “Who the fuck are you? You’re being all vague and shit, and you said I hit my head but it doesn’t hurt, and I…I…I…”

Slowly, carefully, the man wrapped his hands around Stephanie’s forearms and pulled her closer to him: “Calm down, it’ll all clear in a minute.”

“What will be clear- ” Stephanie pulled away, trying to turn away from the stranger…only to see her own body laying slumped in the bath, eyes shut, blood sluggishly flowing down the drain.

The world started to spin, Stephanie’s chest feeling tight - even though she could breath just fine? Could she breathe just fine? That was her corpse in the bath, corpses didn’t need to breathe. Was she even breathing? The dead didn’t breathe, and she was dead, so it would make no sense that she was breathing…but the dead didn’t think, and Stephanie was thinking - at least, she thought she was thinking, so that would make no sense. None of this made any sense! She couldn’t be dead! But that was her body in the bath, and she wasn’t in her body, so what else could the explanation be?

_Oh my God, I’m dead._

_I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m -_

“Stephanie! Stephanie, listen to me. Focus on my voice.” the stranger snapped her out of her panic, turning her round to look at him: “It’s going to be okay.”

“H-h-how is it going to be o-okay?” Stephanie stuttered: “I’m dead!”

The man nodded: “You are dead, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t okay. You have your whole afterlife to work with now, and I’m here to help you. Just take a minute, okay.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m your soulmate.” he said, voice suddenly soft as he pulled up to reveal the scythe mark just under the crease of his elbow.

A scythe that matched her own perfectly.

Looking down, Stephanie saw her that her soulmark was no longer an uneven, ashy grey, but solid black…the colour darkening in the way that soulmarks did when soulmates met each other.

“You’re…you’re my soulmate?”

“I am. I’m sorry I had to meet you like this,” he smiled apologetically: “I’m Chris.”

Considering how much he had scared her originally, Stephanie found something soothing about the sweet edge to Chris’s smile: “I’m Stephanie…I know you knew that already, but…”

Chris’s smile widened into something cheerful rather than pitying: “It’s lovely to meet you, Stephanie, despite the circumstances.”

Stephanie allowed him to pick her hand up, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of it - and Stephanie sort of…melted. Something that Chris seemed to pick up on, if the playful glint in his eye was anything to go by.

Honestly, Stephanie didn’t mind.

Maybe she was still slightly hysterical, but…she was dead. What was the worst that could happen? She might as well go all in with her apparently flirty soulmate - what else was she going to do?

Besides…Chris seemed nice. Inside and out.

“So…what do people do when they get into the afterlife?” Stephanie asked, keeping her fingers twined with Chris’s.

Chris grinned: “In your case? Whatever you goddamn want.”

“And if I want to spend it with my soulmate?”

“Then your wish is my command.”

Stephanie beamed back at him, leaning up on her toes to press a kiss against his cheek: “I could get used to hearing that.”

When she pulled away, Chris looked a little dazed - but in a good way: “Your wish: my command.”

Stephanie grinned.


End file.
